Ken's blog

In the late afternoon of a sunny day, Jack sat under a spreading, umbrella-like tree on a campus hill studying his economics textbook and pondering on a problem assigned to him. Jack scratched his head and began to yawn and gaze into the distance.

Then, Jill walked barefoot up the hill on the verdant grass. “You look puzzled, Jack. What’s up,” she said with a big dimpled smile.

“I can’t figure out this economics problem professor Thrombastus von Vogelkopf assigned me,” Jack wailed.

“Tell me about it,” offered Jill and sat down, pulling up the legs of her tight jeans to get comfortable.

“Well, in this problem there is a Maya Insecurities Corp. which sells papers it calls insecurities, and last year they had a turnover of one type of insecurity to the value of 23,887.09 dollars. This year, sales of the  insecurity rose to 43,445.89 dollars. So the professor wants me to figure out how much the insecurity concerned costs, and how many of it were sold each year,” Jack explained in frustration.

What do you think about that, Jill? Any ideas?” he moaned.

“Doesn’t the professor like you, Jack,” said Jill with a sympathetic tone. “What did you do or say to him, Jack?” she said with a knowing look.

“Well, I did kind of say that ever since the gold standard was dropped modern economic theory, practice and structure can be compared to a house of cards and a Ponzi scheme on a large scale promoted and taught by unscrupulous types with little concern for the human race, and that it would eventually lead to a big crash causing a grand depression and large-scale suffering – even another world war,” said Jack sincerely.

“I told him that incorruptible gold is the metal of the powerful Sun, imaginary values are the stock in trade of the deceptive Moon, where justice is a forgotten concept,” explained Jack. “From the look on his face, I believe he didn’t appreciate my point of view,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Ok, I get the picture,” said Jill, and burst out laughing. “I am taking a class in number theory, Jack, where I have learned things that can help you with this problem. And what will you give me in exchange for this, Jack?” She briefly pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow.

Can you help Jill work out Jack’s economics problem and find the value and amount of the insecurity sold for each of these years?